Rock & roll

"Heads Will Roll," Yeah Yeah Yeahs- The summer hit of ’09, it is unfathomable to me how, more than any of my top three, anybody could resist this club rocker; as if they would have to be somehow immune to the collision of music and physical sensation. Sure, it’s as tritely nostalgic as P-Funk’s “free your ass and your mind will follow” and as emotionally powerful as, uh, masturbation? The synths are as goth as a hearse racing the streets after midnight, the thumping riffage as synthetically powerful as a dentist drill, and the bridge pure Donna Summer disco. Pop music. Dance music. As rock & roll as any shama-lama-ding-dong! Off with your head, just dance!

"If I Can't Have You," Kelly Clarkson- Apparently, I’m the only person in America who really, really likes this song, but I imagine it’s a huge hit with Japanese train commuters. It doesn’t replace “Since U Have Been Gone” as her song but it is heart-racingly classic rock & roll. More Out of Our Heads than Beggars Banquet but rock & roll nonetheless. The blaring buzz to the computerized production kicks like late-night coffee. In a sense Clarkson’s ain’t –no-mountain-high-enough pipes make it harder to tell whether she feels something or is just flexing her muscles but what, as the kids might say, a beast she is w/ those muscles! “I haven’t seen the best that love has to offer…but we can break the rules,” she wails. I’m pretty sure she means it.